Parquet Courts Announce New Album Wide Awake!, Share Restless Ripper of a Lead Single
Listen to "Almost Had To Start A Fight/In And Out Of Patience" now
Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Parquet Courts are back, baby, and they’re Wide Awake! on this wonderful Thursday morning. The Brooklyn-based indie rockers have announced their sixth album, due out on May 18 via Rough Trade Records, and debuted its lead single, the elaborately titled “Almost Had To Start A Fight/In And Out Of Patience,” on which “finding peace is not an easy task.”
Wide Awake! is described in a press release as “a breaking of new territory that’s a testament to the group’s restless spirit,” which could easily describe any entry in the Parquet Courts catalog. Their new album, however, is the product of an unlikely and intriguing pairing: The band teamed up with producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, a six-time Grammy winner and admirer of Parquet Courts who reached out to express his interest in working with them.
“The ethos behind every Parquet Courts record is that there needs to be change for the better, and the best way to tackle that is to step out of one’s comfort zone,” explains guitarist and singer A. Savage. “I personally liked the fact that I was writing a record that indebted to punk and funk, and Brian’s a pop producer who’s made some very polished records. I liked that it didn’t make sense.” Indeed it doesn’t: Burton is best known for his work with decidedly non-indie acts including Gorillaz, Beck, The Black Keys, U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Wide Awake! follows Parquet Courts’ fifth LP, 2016’s Human Performance, which made Paste’s list of that year’s best records. In his review, Eric R. Danton praised the “adventurous and accessible” album as “impressively well-balanced among hooks, smarts and sharp edges.”
In writing Wide Awake!’s 13 tracks, however, Savage and Austin Brown sought to deviate from Human Performance’s balladry by tapping into punk rock’s mix of rage and glee, citing such touchstones as Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits and Black Flag. “All those bands make me want to dance and that’s what I want people to do when they hear our record,” says Brown. Savage adds, “I needed an outlet for the side of me that feels emotions like joy, rage, silliness and anger.”
Last December, Savage offered a preview of the band’s new album in an interview, revealing its then-tentative May release date and characterizing the record as “raw.” He told DIY, “I wanted to get back to writing raw songs … I didn’t write any love songs; it’s all rippers,” also noting, “If there’s one thing the record’s against, it’s nihilism,” a sentiment that Brown echoes in today’s announcement: “In such a hateful era of culture, we stand in opposition to that—and to the nihilism used to cope with that—with ideas of passion and love.”
Primary songwriters Savage and Brown are joined by Max Savage on drums and Sean Yeaton on bass. You can catch the whole Parquet Courts gang on tour in North America and Europe this spring and summer—we’ll certainly be seeing them at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees.
Watch the animated “Almost Had To Start A Fight/In And Out Of Patience” lyric video below, and find the Wide Awake! tracklist and Savage-illustrated album art further down, along with Parquet Courts’ tour slate. You can preorder their new album here.
